Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American actor and baritone singer who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with sopranoJeanette MacDonald. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby soxers and opera purists, and in his heyday, he was the highest paid singer in the world.
During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one each for film, recording, and radio), left his footprints in the wet concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, earned three gold records, and was invited to sing at the third inauguration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941.[2] He also introduced millions of young Americans to classical music and inspired many of them to pursue a musical career.
Early life
Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the only child of Caroline Isabel (née Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy. Nelson grew up in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and in New Bedford, Massachusetts. As a boy, he was a strawberry blond and quickly acquired the nickname "Bricktop".[3] As an adult, his reddish hair prematurely whitened, so his hair photographed as blond. He came from a musical family. His Atlanta-born mother was a church soloist, and his grandmother, Caroline Netta Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio singer. His father occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera House, sang in the church choir, played the drums, and performed in local productions such as H.M.S. Pinafore
Living in near poverty, Eddy was forced to drop out of school and moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. His uncle helped Eddy secure a clerical job at the Mott Iron Works, a plumbing supply company. He later worked as a reporter with ThePhiladelphia Press, the Evening Public Ledger, and the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He also worked briefly as a copywriter at N.W. Ayer Advertising, but was dismissed for constantly singing on the job. Eddy never returned to school, but educated himself with correspondence courses.
Career
Singing
Eddy developed his talent as a boy soprano in church choirs. Throughout his teens, Eddy studied voice and imitated the recordings of baritones such as Titta Ruffo, Antonio Scotti, Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe Campanari, and Reinald Werrenrath. He gave recitals for women's groups and appeared in society theatricals, usually for little or no pay.[4]
He had a job in an iron works factory and then spent ten years as a newspaper reporter. He was fired for paying more attention to music than to journalism. His first professional break came in 1922, when the press singled him out after an appearance in a society theatrical, The Marriage Tax, although his name had been omitted from the program.[4]
Eddy performed in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the Savoy Company, the oldest amateur theater company in the world devoted exclusively to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. With Savoy, Eddy sang the leading role of Strephon in Iolanthe at the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1922. The next year, he played the role of Major-General Stanley in Savoy's production of The Pirates of Penzance. He reprised the role of Strephon with Savoy in 1927, when the group moved their performances to the Academy of Music.[6][7] Thirty-one years later, he was asked for advice by a new Strephon with the company. Eddy wrote:
I envy you. I'd like to play Strephon again, too! The one thing I suggest is to keep him gay, happy, and care-free. You can set the character with your first entrance. Dance in with a sort of cute abandon. Then in "Good morrow, good mother" act joyfully in love. The rest will fall right into line. The first time I did it – at the old Broad Street Theatre – was better than when I did it at the Academy. I let myself get impressed with the importance of the latter house and with my growing experience in opera – and I played it too grand. Don't fall into that trap. Good luck and my very best wishes – to you and all the Company. Sincerely, Nelson Eddy.
Eddy studied briefly with the noted teacher David Bispham, a former Metropolitan Opera singer, but when Bispham died suddenly, Eddy became a student of William Vilonat. In 1927, Eddy borrowed some money and followed his teacher to Dresden for further study in Europe, which was then considered essential for serious American singers. He was offered a job with a small German opera company. Instead, he decided to return to America, where he concentrated on his concert career, making only occasional opera appearances during the next seven years. In 1928, his first concert accompanist was a young pianist named Theodore (Ted) Paxson, who became a close friend and remained his accompanist until Eddy's death 39 years later. In the early 1930s, Eddy's principal teacher was Edouard Lippé, who followed him to Hollywood and appeared in a small role in Eddy's 1935 film Naughty Marietta. In his later years, Eddy changed teachers frequently, constantly learning new vocal techniques. He also had a home recording studio, where he studied his own performances. It was his fascination with technology that inspired him to record three-part harmonies (tenor, baritone, & bass) for his role as a multiple-voiced singing whale in the animated Walt Disney feature, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met", the concluding sequence in the 1946 feature film Make Mine Music.[3]
With the Philadelphia Civic Opera, Eddy sang in the first American performance of Feuersnot by Richard Strauss (December 1, 1927) and in the first American performance of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (November 1, 1928) with Helen Jepson. In Ariadne, Eddy sang the roles of the Wigmaker and Harlequin in the original German. He performed under Leopold Stokowski as the Drum Major in the second American performance of Alban Berg's Wozzeck on November 24, 1931.[4]
At Carnegie Hall in New York City, Christmas 1931, he sang in the world premiere of Maria egiziaca (Mary in Egypt), unexpectedly conducted by the composer Ottorino Respighi himself when famed conductor Arturo Toscanini fell ill at the last minute. Years later, when Toscanini visited the MGM lot in California, Eddy greeted him by singing a few bars of Maria egiziaca.[4]
Eddy continued in occasional opera roles until his film work made it difficult to schedule appearances the requisite year or two in advance. Among his final opera performances were three with the San Francisco Opera in 1934, when he was still "unknown". Marjory M. Fisher of the San Francisco News wrote of his December 8, 1934, performance of Wolfram in Tannhäuser, "Nelson Eddy made a tremendously fine impression ... he left no doubt in the minds of discerning auditors that he belongs in that fine group of baritones which includes Lawrence Tibbett, Richard Bonelli, and John Charles Thomas and which represents America's outstanding contribution to the contemporary opera stage."[citation needed] He also sang Amonasro in Aida on November 11, 1934, to similar acclaim. Elisabeth Rethberg, Giovanni Martinelli, and Ezio Pinza were in the cast. However, opera quietly faded from Eddy's schedule as films and highly lucrative concerts claimed more and more of his time.[4]
When he resumed his concert career following his screen success, he made a point of delivering a traditional concert repertoire, performing his hit screen songs only as encores. He felt strongly that audiences needed to be exposed to all kinds of music.
Hollywood
Eddy was "discovered" by Hollywood when he substituted at the last minute for the noted diva Lotte Lehmann at a sold-out concert in Los Angeles on February 28, 1933. He scored a professional triumph with 18 curtain calls, and several film offers immediately followed. After much agonizing, he decided that being seen on screen might boost audiences for what he considered his "real work", his concerts. (Also, like his machinist father, he was fascinated with gadgets and the mechanics of the new talking pictures.) Eddy's concert fee rose from $500 to $10,000 per performance.[4]
Eddy and MacDonald from the trailer for Sweethearts (1938): The pair acted in eight films together.
Eddy signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he made the first 15 of his 19 feature films. His contract guaranteed him three months off each year to continue his concert tours. MGM was not sure how to use him, and he spent more than a year on salary with little to do. His voice can be heard singing "Daisy Bell" on the soundtrack of the 1933 Pete SmithshortHandlebars. He appeared and sang one song each in Broadway to Hollywood and Dancing Lady, both in 1933, and Student Tour in 1934. Audience response was favorable, and he was cast as the male lead opposite the established star Jeanette MacDonald in the 1935 film version of Victor Herbert's 1910 operettaNaughty Marietta.[3]
Naughty Marietta was the surprise hit of 1935. Its key song, "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", became a hit and earned Eddy his first gold record. He also sang "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" and "I'm Falling in Love with Someone". The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, received the Photoplay Gold Medal Award as Best Picture, and was voted one of the Ten Best Pictures of 1935 by the New York film critics. Critics singled out Eddy for praise:
"The screen has found a thrilling thrush, possessed not only of a rare vocal tone, but of a personality and form and features cast in the heroic mold." – New York American.[9]
Eddy appeared in seven more MGM films with Jeanette MacDonald:
Rose Marie (1936) is probably his most-remembered film. Eddy sang "Song of the Mounties" and "Indian Love Call" by Rudolf Friml. His definitive portrayal of the steadfast Mountie became a popular icon, frequently spoofed in cartoons and TV skits, and even generating travesties on stage (Little Mary Sunshine, 1959). One long-lived imitation, Dudley Do-Right, began as a cartoon character on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (1959-1964) and went on to be portrayed by Brendan Fraser in a live-action film, Dudley Do-Right (1999). When the Mounties retired their classic red jackets and campaign hats in 1970, except for ceremonial attire, hundreds of newspapers accompanied the story with a photo of Nelson Eddy as Sgt. Bruce in Rose Marie, made 34 years earlier.
Maytime (1937) is regarded as one of Eddy's best films. "Will You Remember" by Sigmund Romberg brought Eddy another gold record. Frank Nugent wrote in The New York Times wrote that the film [was] "the most entrancing operetta the screen has given us. ... and it affirms Nelson Eddy's preeminence among the baritones of filmdom".[10]
Sweethearts (1938) was MGM's first three-strip Technicolor feature, incorporating Victor Herbert's 1913 stage score into a modern script by Dorothy Parker. It won the Photoplay Gold Medal Award as Best Picture of the Year.
New Moon (1940) based on Romberg's 1927 Broadway hit, became one of Eddy's most popular films, although in 1978 it was included in the book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. His key songs were "Lover, Come Back to Me", "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise", "Wanting You", and "Stout Hearted Men".
I Married an Angel (1942), adapted from the Rodgers and Hart stage musical about an angel who loses her wings on her wedding night, suffered from censorship problems. Eddy sang "Spring Is Here" and the title song.
Nelson Eddy also starred in films with other leading ladies:
Rosalie (1937), with Eleanor Powell, offered a score by Cole Porter. In his first solo-starring film, the script called for Eddy to portray a football-playing West Point pilot who pursues a princess-in-disguise to Europe. Eddy recorded the title song.
Phantom of the Opera (1943) was Eddy's first film after he left MGM at the end of his seven-year contract. This lavish Technicolor musical also starred Claude Rains as the Phantom and Susanna Foster as Christine.
Make Mine Music (1946) was a Walt Disneyanimated feature compilation. Eddy provided all the singing and speaking voices for the touching final segment, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met," later released as a short, Willie, the Operatic Whale, by Disney in 1954. Using a technique based on his technical experiments with his home recording equipment, Eddy was able to sing sextets with himself on the soundtrack, providing all the voices from bass to soprano.
After Eddy and MacDonald left MGM in 1942, several unrealized films remained that would have reunited the team. Eddy signed with Universal in 1943 for a two-picture deal. The first was Phantom of the Opera and the second would have co-starred MacDonald. She filmed her two scenes for Follow the Boys, then both stars severed ties with Universal, as Eddy was upset with how Phantom of the Opera turned out.
Among their later other proposed projects were East Wind; Crescent Carnival, a book optioned by MacDonald; and The Rosary, the 1910 best-seller, which Eddy had read as a teen and pitched to MGM as a "comeback" film for MacDonald and himself in 1948. Under the name "Isaac Ackerman" he wrote a biopic screenplay about Chaliapin, in which he was to play the lead and also a young Nelson Eddy, but it was never produced.[11] He also wrote two movie treatments for MacDonald and himself, Timothy Waits for Love and All Stars Don't Spangle.[12]
Recordings
Eddy made more than 290 recordings between 1935 and 1964, singing songs from his films, plus opera, folk songs, popular songs, Gilbert and Sullivan, and traditional arias from his concert repertoire. Since both MacDonald and he were under contract to RCA Victor between 1935 and 1938, this made it possible to include several popular duets from their films. In 1938, he signed with the Columbia Masterworks division of Columbia Records, which ended MacDonald-Eddy duets until Favorites in Stereo, a special LP album the two made together in 1959. He also recorded duets with his other screen partner, Risë Stevens (The Chocolate Soldier), and for albums with, among others, Nadine Conner, Doretta Morrow, Eleanor Steber, and Jo Stafford.[13]
Eddy's recordings drew rave reviews during the 1930s and 1940s, and he continued to get good reviews into the 1960s. The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner on October 4, 1964, noted: "Nelson Eddy continues to roll along, physically and vocally indestructible. Proof is his newest recording on the Everest label, "Of Girls I Sing". At the age of 63 and after 42 years of professional singing, Eddy demonstrates not much change has occurred in his romantic and robust baritone, which made him America's most popular singer in the early '30s".[13]
War work
Like many performers, Eddy was active during World War II, even before the United States entered the war. He did his first "war effort" concert on October 19, 1939, with Leopold Stokowski for Polish war relief. In 1942, he became an air raid warden and also put in long hours at the Hollywood Canteen. He broadcast for the armed forces throughout the war. In late 1943, he went on a two-month, 35,000-mile tour, giving concerts for military personnel in Belém and Natal, Brazil; Accra, Gold Coast; Aden; Asmara, Eritrea; Cairo (where he met King Farouk); Tehran; Casablanca; and the Azores. Because he spoke fluent German, having studied opera in Dresden during the 1920s, his work as an Allied spy was invaluable until his cover was blown with a near-fatal assignment in Cairo.[14]
His version of the song "Rose Marie" was used as the subject of an episode of the Scottish comedy sitcom Still Game (S4E2), in which the song was requested by a dying patient.
Nelson Eddy marks the end of the radio program Kraft Music Hall on September 22, 1949.
He began his more than 600 radio appearances in the mid-1920s. The first may have been on December 26, 1924, at station WOO in Philadelphia. Besides his many guest appearances, he hosted The Voice of Firestone (1936), The Chase and Sanborn Hour (1937–1939), and Kraft Music Hall (1947–1948), among other programs. Eddy frequently used his radio shows to advance the careers of promising young singers. While his programs often featured "serious" music, they were never straitlaced. It was in a series of comedy routines with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the Chase and Sanborn Hour that Eddy's name became associated with the song "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", which was also included in the film Maytime. On March 31, 1933, he performed the role of Gurnemanz in a broadcast of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal with Rose Bampton, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. During the 1940s, he was a frequent guest on Lux Radio Theater with Cecil B. DeMille, performing radio versions of Eddy's popular films. In 1951, Eddy guest-starred on several episodes of The Alan Young Show on CBS-TV. In 1952, he recorded a pilot for a sitcom, Nelson Eddy's Backyard, with Jan Clayton, but it failed to find a network slot. On November 12, 1952, he surprised his former co-star Jeanette MacDonald when she was the subject of Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life. On November 30, 1952, Eddy was Ed Sullivan's guest on Toast of the Town.[13]
The advent of television made inroads in the once-lucrative concert circuits, and in the early 1950s, Eddy considered future career options, eventually deciding to form a nightclub act. It premiered in January 1953, with singer Gale Sherwood, his partner, and Ted Paxson, his accompanist. Variety wrote, "Nelson Eddy, vet of films, concerts, and stage, required less than one minute to put a jam-packed audience in his hip pocket in one of the most explosive openings in this city's nightery history.... Before Eddy had even started to sing, they liked him personally as a warm human being".[17] The act continued for the next 15 years and made four tours of Australia.
Personal life
Eddy married Ann Denitz Franklin, former wife of noted director Sidney Franklin, on January 19, 1939. Her son, Sidney Jr., became Eddy's stepson, but Nelson and she had no children of their own. They were married for 27 years, until Nelson's death. Ann Eddy died on August 28, 1987. She is buried next to Eddy and Eddy's mother in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.[18] Eddy was a Republican.[2]
Relationship with Jeanette MacDonald
Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald from the trailer for the film Sweethearts (1938)
Despite public denials from the stars themselves of any personal relationship between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, documentation shows otherwise. In a handwritten 1935 letter by Nelson to "Dearest Jeanette", written on his letterhead, Nelson Eddy wrote: "I love you and will always be devoted to you."[19]
In the biography Sweethearts by Sharon Rich, the author presents MacDonald and Eddy as continuing an adulterous affair after their marriages. Rich, who was a close friend of MacDonald's older sister Blossom Rock, also knew Gene Raymond, and she documents that the relationship lasted with a few breaks until MacDonald's death. Newsreel footage from MacDonald's funeral shows Eddy as the last person exiting the chapel, circled by other celebrities, such as Lauritz Melchior, who offer him condolences.[20]
MacDonald had a reported eight pregnancies by Eddy, the first one while they were filming Rose Marie. This was before she had an intimate relationship with Gene Raymond. Raymond was physically unable to father children, and MacDonald alluded to this fact in her unfinished autobiography, writing that she returned from her Hawaii honeymoon with Raymond with the knowledge that "The MacRaymonds had no children."[21] Nevertheless, MacDonald had additional documented and visible pregnancies while married to Raymond, all of which ended in miscarriage.
Jeanette MacDonald visibly pregnant in screenshot with Nelson Eddy from "Sweethearts" trailer (1938)
Biographer E. J. Fleming also alleges that Eddy confronted Raymond about physically abusing MacDonald, who was visibly pregnant with Eddy's child[22] while filming Sweethearts. Eddy attacked him and left him for dead; newspapers reported incorrectly that Raymond was recovering from an accidental fall.[23]
Louis B. Mayer adamantly refused to allow MacDonald to annul her marriage and elope. The situation ended with MacDonald losing her baby at nearly 6 months.[24] The boy was named Daniel Kendrick Eddy, and Nelson buried him (or his ashes) on private property in Ojai, California.[24]
Over the decades, MacDonald and Eddy had several private homes together. In 1938, they had a small Burbank house located at 812 S Mariposa Street. In the 1940s, Nelson leased and remodeled, for himself and MacDonald, the old cowboy bunkhouse at 1330 Angelo Drive, Beverly Hills. Starting in 1947, they used 710 N. Camden Drive, which had been the home of MacDonald's mother until her death. They also alternately stayed at favorite hotels and homes owned by their celebrity friends throughout the United States, including homes owned by Lily Pons and Irene Dunne. In 1963, MacDonald and Raymond moved into two adjoining apartments on the 8th floor in the East building at the Wilshire Comstock in Westwood. Nelson Eddy had his own apartment on the 7th floor of the West building. He allowed MacDonald to decorate it, and they used it as a rendezvous spot until she was too weak to walk the few yards over to his building. (After Eddy's death, his widow Ann learned of the apartment and moved into it.)[25]
Forbidden to marry early on by MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer, MacDonald and Eddy performed an unofficial wedding ceremony at Lake Tahoe while filming Rose Marie. They considered that "by God's laws", they had married, although they were never able to do so legally. Each fall, they returned to Tahoe to renew their vows. As late as 1948, MacDonald's desk diary had a handwritten "Lake Tahoe" entry.[26] After their 1943 visit, Eddy wrote a lengthy diary entry about their trip and his love for her, calling her "my wife", which he did in private to the end of her life.[27]
He is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, between his mother and his widow (who outlived him by twenty years).[18]
Papers
Eddy's meticulously annotated scores (some with his caricatures sketched in the margins) are now housed at Occidental College Special Collections in Los Angeles. His personal papers and scrapbooks are at the University of Southern California Cinema/Television Library, also in Los Angeles.
Discography
Hymns We Love (1946, Columbia)
Nelson Eddy in songs of Stephen Foster (1949 Columbia)
Barclay, Florence L., The Rosary (with new introduction by Sharon Rich and comments by Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy), Bell Harbour Press, 2005. This 1910 #1 best seller featured two singers in a "Jane Eyre" plot, and the heroine's nickname was, in fact, Jeanette. Eddy chose it as a possible film vehicle for himself and MacDonald in 1948. This edition features a new introduction with excerpts from their written correspondence of that year, in which the film project was discussed.
Eddy, Nelson, "All Stars Don't Spangle" treatment for himself and MacDonald reprinted in its entirety in Mac/Eddy Today magazine, issue #50.
Kiner, Larry, Nelson Eddy: A Bio-Discography, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1992. A near-complete list of every recording and radio show of Eddy's, including song titles, photos and other important facts.
Knowles (Dugan), Eleanor, The Films of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Booksurge LLC, 2006. 646 pages, 591 photos. Contains detailed film credits, plots, and backgrounds for the two stars' 41 films, also complete music lists for each film, biographies of the two stars, and a complete discography.
Rich, Sharon, Sweethearts: The Timeless Love Affair Onscreen and Off Between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Bell Harbour Press, 2014. 612 pages, about 100 photos, over 50 pages of documentation. A candid biography in which Eddy's graphic love letters to MacDonald are startling, but their relationship is meticulously documented at times on a near-daily basis. Using eyewitness accounts from contemporary letters, this biography provides needed insight into why Eddy made certain professional decisions in the 1940s and 1950s.
Rich, Sharon, Nelson Eddy: The Opera Years, Bell Harbour Press, 2001. A very comprehensive overview of Eddy's early career. This photo-filled book includes compilations of virtually every review written about him from 1922 until 1935, clippings from his personal scrapbooks with his handwritten notations, all early interviews, many rare photographs and all his operas (including some tenor and bass roles). A bonus chapter includes MacDonald's opera career (1943–45) and their operatic scenes together in the lost "Tosca" Act II from the movie Maytime. There are also excerpts from an unproduced movie script written by Nelson on the life of Feodor Chaliapin, in which he had planned to play dual roles—Chaliapin and himself.
Lillo, Antonio. 2000. "Bees, Nelsons, and Sterling Denominations: A Brief Look at Cockney Slang and Coinage". Journal of English Linguistics 28 (2): pp. 145–172.
McCormick, Maggie (2019). I'll See You Again: The Bittersweet Love Story and Wartime Letters of Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond, Volume 1: The War - and Before. BearManor Media. ISBN978-1-62933-436-3.
McCormick, Maggie (2019). I'll See You Again: The Bittersweet Love Story and Wartime Letters of Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond, Volume 2: The Letters. BearManor Media. ISBN978-1-62933-448-6.
McCormick, Maggie (2019). I'll See You Again: The Bittersweet Love Story and Wartime Letters of Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond, Volume 3: After the War. BearManor Media. ISBN978-1-62933-450-9.
External links
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